The first session of this semester’s Druid Academy, open to NUI Galway students and staff, will take place today (Wednesday, 21 October) from 4pm- 6pm online. Following on from NUI Galway’s close partnership with Druid Theatre Company, the Department of Drama and Theatre Studies are delighted to work with Druid to present the Druid Academy, where students have the opportunity to connect with, and learn from, practitioners working in the field across a large number of roles - from producing, directing, performance and playwrighting, to creative roles such as costume and set design, to administrative roles such as marketing and fundraising. Professor Patrick Lonergan, Drama and Theatre Studies, NUI Galway, says: “This week’s focus is Costumeand we will be kicking off the Druid Academy for this semester with an interview with Clíodhna Hallissey, costume designer for Druid's recent production of Tom Murphy’s one-act play On the Outside and costume supervisor for Druid’s landmark tour of the one-act plays of Lady Gregory, DruidGregory. Clíodhna is a graduate of the Drama and Theatre Studies department and we’re delighted to have her back to speak about her career in professional theatre to date.” The session will take the form of a 45 minute interview followed by questions. Clíodhna will talk about her work in costume supervision and costume design, and early-career trajectories in theatre in Galway and Ireland. The following is the full schedule for the Druid Academy for this semester (please note that this is subject to change, based on practitioners’ availability).  All sessions will take place online on Wednesdays from 4pm - 6pm. Druid Academy Schedule 2020-2021 – Semester 1 28/10/20 - Reading and Development Week 04/11/20 – Brian Fenton, Producer – Starting out as a producer, commissioning new work and producing during a pandemic 11/11/20 - Sonja Kelly, Playwright – Playwrighting, writing for a commission, creating and acting in your own work 18/11/20 – Sara Joyce, Director – Directing and assistant directing 25/11/20 – Alison Greene, Marketing and Communications – Audience engagement, marketing and communications (Alison is a former graduate of Drama and Theatre Studies at NUI Galway) Clíodhna Hallissey is arecent graduate of the BA in Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies and English at NUI Galway. Clíodhna was the 2019/2020 recipient of the Marie Mullen Bursary for female theatre artists working in the fields of design, directing and dramaturgy. Clíodhna has worked with Druid on a number of productions, most recently as Costume Designer for On the Outside and Costume Supervisor for DruidGregory.  She was Assistant Costume Designer and Dresser for The Cherry Orchard and Costume Dresser for DruidShakespeare: Richard III at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin. Her other work in theatre includes: Costume Designer for Ar Ais Arís (Brú Theatre/Galway 2020); An Dara Réalt, Yummy Mummy (An Taibhdhearc); Aisling? (Ealaíon na Gaeltachta); BAOITE (An Taibhdhearc / Abbey Theatre); Costume Assistant and Dresser for Grief is the Thing with Feathers (Landmark Productions); The Country Girls (Abbey Theatre). Clíodhna’s work in film and television includes: Costume Designer for Living with a Fairy 2; Costume Assistant for Mr. Mender and The Chummyjiggers; Costume Trainee for Wild Mountain Thyme. The Druid Academy is a ten year partnership with NUI Galway that covers a range of undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in Drama, Theatre and Performance, as well as PhD research opportunities. Borne out of a vision of Galway as a location for the creation of excellent theatre, teaching in the Druid Academy follows the Druid approach, focusing on ensemble as a mode of performance, rigorous critical analysis of theatre, by both practitioners and audiences, and an awareness of the importance of audience, in a variety of locations: locally, regionally, nationally and internationally. The Druid Academy sessions take place online through Blackboard and can be accessed at: https://eu.bbcollab.com/guest/5ab05488c4cf44658e63a2124c2652a5. -Ends-

The book interrogates the human consequences of conflict and displacement, challenges the thinking of statist security agendas that divide the world into zones of sanctuary and abandonment, and reflects critically upon our interconnected global sense of precarity NUI Galway Lecturer, Dr John Morrissey has published his fifth book, Haven: The Mediterranean Crisis and Human Security, which presents a transformative understanding of security in responding to the Mediterranean refugee crisis by drawing critically on the UN concept of ‘human security’. From a range of Arts, Humanities and Social Science disciplines, and through case studies incorporating key governmental, NGO and refugee perspectives, the book critiques the major geopolitical, economic and social issues of the crisis. It documents the prioritisation of population management techniques that are underpinned by conventional territorial logics of security, before considering the alternative priorities of human security that can facilitate an active human rights framework and a more holistic and humanitarian interventionism. In advancing a human security approach to the crisis, Haven: The Mediterranean Crisis and Human Security interrogates the human consequences of conflict and displacement, challenges the impoverished thinking of statist security agendas that divide the world into zones of sanctuary and abandonment, and reflects critically upon our interconnected global sense of precarity, particularly so in the Covid-19 world. Dr Morrissey said: “Haven: The Mediterranean Crisis and Human Security was inspired by three-year-old Alan Kurdi’s tragic drowning in September of 2015. I was deeply affected by the photographs of his little body washed up and hauntingly alone on a Turkish beach. The book is dedicated to all those who have died in the Mediterranean over the last five years, and dedicated too to a determined calling out of our responsibility in Europe to safeguard human rights and human security for all. “My thanks to the wonderful colleagues and graduate students who fed so inspiringly into an Irish Research Council project I received funding for in 2016. The book is a culmination of that project, and the contributions, which come from leading international writers, Irish Navy personnel, students and activists, reflect a deep empathy and concern for solidarity in an interconnected world – a world whose precarities have become even more acute and visible since the outbreak of Covid-19.” Dr Morrissey is a Senior Lecturer in Geography, Programme Director of the MA in Environment, Society and Development, and Associate Director of the Moore Institute for Humanities at NUI Galway. He has published widely in the areas of geopolitics, security and international development. His other books include: Negotiating Colonialism; Key Concepts in Historical Geography; Spatial Justice and the Irish Crisis; and The Long War: CENTCOM, Grand Strategy and Global Security. His research has been supported by various grants, from the British Academy and UK Economic and Social Research Council, to the Irish Research Council and Clinton Institute for American Studies, and in recent years he has held prestigious visiting fellowships at City University of New York, Virginia Tech, the University of Cambridge, the University of Oxford and Australian National University. The book was supported by the Academic Council on the United Nations System, an NUI Publications Prize and an NUI Galway Grant-in-Aid Award. -Ends-

NUI Galway has contributed to a documentary about the death by hunger strike, one hundred years ago, of Terence MacSwiney, who is regarded as one of the most important events in the history of the Irish revolutionary period. 74 Days: The Hunger Strike of Terence MacSwiney will broadcast on Wednesday, 21 October on RTÉ One at 9.30pm. Presented by NUI Galway historian, Dr Sarah-Anne Buckley, ’74 Days’ uses contemporary science insights alongside the original medical notes recorded during MacSwiney’s hunger strike to recreate the story of the last 74 days of his life, and to shine fresh perspective onto a pivotal moment in recent history. Terence MacSwiney’s 74-day hunger strike is one of the longest on record. His actions subsequently inspired similar acts worldwide, most notably by Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. Born in Cork in 1879, Terence James MacSwiney was an Irish playwright, author and politician. He was elected as Sinn Féin Lord Mayor of Cork during the Irish War of Independence in 1920. He was arrested by the British Government on charges of sedition and imprisoned in Brixton Prison where he died by hunger strike on October 1920. MacSwiney’s hunger strike was a catalyst for the intensification of Ireland’s War of Independence. Following his death, and the publicity garnered across the world by the circumstances in which he died, the British government returned to the negotiating table in respect of Ireland. The eventual outcome of which was the establishment, in 1922, of the Irish Free State. Dr Sarah-Anne Buckley, Discipline of History, NUI Galway, said: “Terence MacSwiney’s hunger strike is not only a pivotal moment in the history of the Irish revolution, but in the history of resistance and activism globally. Central to this story are the women in MacSwiney’s life, his sisters Mary and Annie and his wife Muriel and their treatment both during the strike and after his death. For me, the programme reveals much about how this strike felt and was experienced, while also exploring MacSwiney the individual, his life, his family, and his legacy.” Terence MacSwiney’s hunger strike is one of the great, marginal stories from modern Irish history: he is arguably better known internationally - in places like Vietnam and Catalonia – than he is at home. Dr Sarah-Anne Buckley argues that his story needs to now be told at home.  In this documentary, Dr Buckley builds a thesis using the personal letters, diaries and witness statements of three extraordinary women central to the hunger strike and who were by MacSwiney’s bedside throughout it: his wife Muriel and his sisters Annie and Mary. These three women were witnesses to history, as well as active participants and victims of it. Elsewhere, Sarah-Anne works closely with Dr Phil Kieran and Clinical Psychologist Eddie Murphy to shed contemporary medical insight onto the impact of hunger striking. Combining first-person, eye-witness testimony from the period with high-end digital technology, they re-create a contemporary medical model that captures MacSwiney’s hunger strike on a day-by-day basis.  Contributors include John Borgonovo, Ciara Breathnach, Daniel Breen, Linda Hogan, Tomás MacConmara, Laurence McKeown, William Murphy, Niall Murray, Helene O’Keeffe, and Anne Twomey. 74 Days: The Hunger Strike of Terence MacSwiney was directed by Ciara Hyland of ForeFront Productions for RTÉ and funded by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland with the Television Licence fee. -Ends-